


all that remains of his legacy is the baggage i'm left to carry

by deadlocking



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dubious Consent, M/M, One-Sided Relationship, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, but this is gabe so he's not actually dead dw, demon hunter AU, eventually, gabe dies and everyone's upset, listen the ending's already worked out dw
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-19
Packaged: 2019-09-20 13:43:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17023692
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlocking/pseuds/deadlocking
Summary: He knows that when Morrison looks at him, with that smile and beckoning hand, it isn't him he's calling for.He approaches anyways.





	1. without him

**Author's Note:**

> A demon hunter McReyes AU, with a dash of past Reaper76 and current dubious consent McMorrison.
> 
> Demon Hunter verse basically has Overwatch as a group of demon hunters. Not much more to say about that. Lots of mental world building's been done and will be explained in notes as needed.

Unlike everyone else, he hadn't taken off his hat. Hadn't spoken a word. Quietly, Jesse had accepted everyone's condolences, the shoulder pats and hugs. Their apologies, however, left a bitter taste in his mouth-- perhaps it was because he would bite his tongue hard enough to bleed to keep from growling in anger. The blood burned his tongue, made him want to spit it out and wish that it would burn anyone it touched.   
  
They were sorry? For what?   
Sorry for the state this all left him in?   
Sorry that Gabe was gone?   
  
Unlike everyone else, he stayed despite the storm. The rain beat hard on his coat, icy cold droplets stinging his skin, but his heart felt colder still. The flowers and frills that had come with the ceremony didn't fit Reyes in the slightest-- of course, he was the only one that knew or understood that. 'Making a big deal out of nothing,' he could practically hear to his side. Reyes would have picked up the stupid bouquet left next to the photo of himself (with a fake smile-- Jesse knew that well enough) and he would have tossed it away. Maybe he would have berated Morrison for being so sappy. ‘We’re hunters.  _ Hunters. _ Why are we wasting time with this sappy shit?’ None of this was him. 'We see people die all the time, every day. Quit this shit.'   
  
'But you're the only one that matters.' He wants to say it. He's wanted to say it for so long. But even now, even to the illusion of Gabriel Reyes, he can't bring himself to say it. Instead, dark eyes remain locked onto the gravestone. It could have been minutes or hours that he stood there, reading the engraved name again and again. It was an incantation, an attempt to bring back the dead. It was the prayer of a man who had lost his faith and pitifully wanted God to take him back.   
  
Whatever it was, it was useless.   
  
It wasn’t until the storm clouds had passed overhead that he took off his hat. The goddamn sunshine after the rain was even more of a taunt. ‘Gabriel’s smiling down on us’, he could hear Amari say. He knew that wasn’t true, though. That just wasn’t who Gabriel was. Not his Gabriel, at least.

The rain had stopped, but his eyes were still wet.

* * *

  
How had they ended up here? When had he ended up here in his place, with admiring eyes gazing up at him? He looked down and saw a pair of precious sapphires, ones that should have remained locked behind glass and out of his reach. Yet here he was. Here he was gazing into a stolen treasure, one that begged Jesse to take them when he wanted none of it. None of this belonged to him, and he knew it. They both knew it.   
  
Intimacy hadn’t come easy for him, but his mentor had taught him that it was okay to let his walls down. When he was here, there was someone that would keep him safe. There was someone that would hold onto him and keep the pieces of him from falling apart. For the two of them, it was the softness of the world that they should not have deserved, but took anyways.

This, whatever it was with Morrison, it wasn’t intimacy.   
It was a game that he played knowing he lost every single time.

It's sacrilegious-- he's treading on forbidden grounds, following footsteps that would only lead to his own destruction. He was warned against going down this road, but when his guiding light had disappeared, he had walked into the darkness. Surely, he should never have taken the devil’s hand. This dance wasn’t his. Jack, however, had been kind words and a silently pleading gaze, and the gunslinger knew too well that he had been ensnared. In his heart of hearts, he knew that Morrison was hurting as well. He knew that he had lost just as much, maybe even more.

After all, whatever Jesse thought he had with Gabriel, it must have paled in comparison to the love of two soldiers that had endured war after ear together. Even in their most intimate moments, the younger hunter knew that somewhere, his mentor’s heart belonged elsewhere. He could practically hear Gabriel asking him to take care of Jack after he left.

Reyes would have wanted this for them, right? ‘Move on, kid. Shit happens. You’re too goddamn sentimental.’ If it would help everyone move on, then he was doing the right thing, wasn’t he?

Then why did it feel so wrong?

  
Perhaps he didn't fear what lay at the end of the path.   
Maybe he did fear it, but was already too far gone.   
Resignation? Possibly. He had been warned, but he had no reason to heed the warnings anymore.   


Not without him.


	2. dying ember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> let's start over at the beginnin'.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Beta'd by my fiancee this time.

For as long as he could remember, Jesse McCree had been alone. He’d had a mother and a father, as so many often do, but they were taken from him at such a young age that he couldn’t recall their faces. It wasn’t long after that that he was taken in by the other survivors of the attack on his village. Even those people that had taken care of him (if he could call it that, that sad excuse for a charity for the victims), he couldn’t seem to remember the names or faces of. They didn’t seem to matter at all. In the end, they were all looking out for themselves.

Jesse was old enough when he saw them turn on each other for the sake of their own survival to take a message away from it:  
There was no justice in the world, and no good deed went unpunished.

He came to learn that everyone left at some point, and that he could only rely on himself. Despite a charming smile and warm personality, it made his heart cold, caused his gaze to be oddly… empty. Leaving his home behind was hard, but he knew it was the best thing for him to do. Only the strongest and feared survived, and he needed to earn his place.

At least, that’s what Deadlock had taught him.

Should he call them taking him in a saving grace? Perhaps. They became a pseudo-family to him, even when he knew that he constantly had to look over his shoulder, make sure there was no knife about to get stabbed into his back. What he got from them was a group who shared his values, trained him. With their help and the need to survive, he became a better fighter and a colder person.

Neither demon nor human stood up to the gang, and they took what they wanted when they wanted it. It wasn’t the type of life he probably would see himself deciding to have nowadays, but back then it had been his only choice, he believed. And for that time, he fooled himself into thinking he was happy. Jesse McCree, Deadlock gang member, was surviving, but not living.

Hitting up the wrong village had its consequences. Soon, the dreaded Overwatch organization had their eyes on the gang, and maybe he should have seen the end of this made family coming. Maybe he should have realized that the life he was living had to catch up with him at some point-- no one escapes karma’s grasp.

Their base was invaded, members chased out and gunned down. (It was a testament to how cold he’d become that seeing the dead bodies of his fellow gang members didn’t make him even bat an eye.) Despite his frozen heart, Jesse had a soul on fire, and there was no way he was going down without a fight. Dying on his knees would have been pitiful, and he deserved a death with more dignity. He saw red, blood burning against his skin as he tried to make some sort of escape. (The sun. If he could see the setting sun one more time--)

Down he went. It wasn’t a gun wound to the shoulder, nor someone grabbing him and knocking him down, it was his own goldarn need to look up that prevented him from seeing the plank of wood in his path, and he hit the ground hard. With a grunt, he shifted up onto his elbows, and when he finally cast his gaze back up to the sky, he was only met with the gaze of another man.

If this was Death himself, well, he could take him now.

“That was pretty stupid, kid.”

The way he spoke to him so casually, like he wasn’t a criminal, threw him for a loop. “M’not a kid.” It was all he could think to reply with, teeth gritted in a snarl. As he sat up, he almost expected this man to grab him and yank him up, or even knock him back down. Instead, he merely stood where he was, almost seeming to wait.

“You definitely act like one, if you’re going to keep pouting like that.”

This guy… he was definitely aggravating. Before he had a chance to reply, however, he’d spoken again.

“Look. I oughtta shoot you right here, right now.”

The tap of a shotgun to his forehead emphasized his point.

“... But you’re a good shot, kid. I’ll give you a choice: Come back with me to Overwatch, or we throw your sorry ass in jail. Seems like an easy enough choice, don’t you think?”

Gabriel Reyes offered him a chance at a new life, a place where his bloodied hands could be used to help instead of harm. At that moment in time, he hadn’t realized what he had been given, had been angry and wanted to lash out. He really was the child Gabriel had said he was. But in the end, he had given him something he had never been given before: a chance. If he had known that taking that hand that day would have brought him to where he was today, he would have thanked him then and there, maybe every day for the rest of his life.

In those dark eyes, Jesse saw home, and for once, he felt hope. He found belonging, and he found someone he could rely on to always be there for him.

It was childish of him to believe in a silly thing like promises. But god, if it didn’t make him happy to pretend.

“Jesse.”

Adjusting his hat with a huff, the gunslinger looked over his shoulder and back at Gabriel, and for the first time he saw something he felt he never had before. There was a softness in the elder man’s gaze that struck something within Jesse’s chest, a warmth that flooded through him like a good cup of coffee on a cold morning, like a night by the fireplace, like every single moment he spent by his side. Until now, he’d learned that it was best to hide all your cards, to always keep a poker face-- your outer expression should never match your inner. But he could tell that he was being shown a moment of vulnerability, and it slowly thawed the heart he thought frozen.

“You’re a good one. I’m keeping you.”

That arm around his shoulders, being hugged closed to his side, he felt… right for once. Like he belonged somewhere, truly. That somewhere was here by Gabriel’s side, repaying every bit of kindness he’d been shown-- after all, he owed this man his life. Now he had his heart too. Closing his eyes, he leaned closer to his mentor, lips parted with words he nearly spoke, should have, could have, so close--

 

“Jesse, what are you still doing outside? It’s getting cold.”

One last exhalation of smoke, and the gunslinger let the cigar fall from his fingers. He put it out beneath his boot before he shifted his coat more around his shoulders. Odd-- he hadn’t noticed the chill in the slightest. Maybe it was because he was too lost in a warm memory.

* * *

Their game for two only had two steps. Easy in theory, but damn hard to enact.

Step one: Forget everything you feel. It doesn’t matter.

Jesse had all but mastered that step. The way his roughened fingers brushed against pale skin made the body underneath him shudder, but it brought himself no joy, no pleasure, nothing. It meant nothing at all. And if it did, that wouldn’t matter in the slightest. None of this was for him. Not even when Jack leaned up and their lips brushed together for the briefest of moments did he feel a thing. But goldarn could he pretend he did. He could sigh on cue and cup his cheek, he could take that step that the blond wanted him too and lead them both further down.

Step two: Don’t step out of line.

There was a path laid out for him, and he dared not stray. He had learned that within the first week. If it were Gabe, he would have run his fingers through his hair, would have taken a grip and tugged his head back, and take what he was allowed to. After all, his mentor was there to teach, and he taught him that it was okay to want, to need. It was okay to seek out what he wanted, because Gabe was always more than willing to give.

That was not the case with Jack. He’d been pushed away, and the hurt he saw in those eyes made his heart sink. It wasn’t what his commander wanted, and he had failed. And if he failed, he was useless. It took practice, but he eventually learned the rules of the game, and became an expert. He had to. It was expected of him.  
He had to be perfect. Otherwise, he had no place here. And more than anything, Jesse needed to be needed.

His lips knew where to press, teeth knew just where to sink in. The fire that trailed after his fingertips as he worshiped the false god beneath him burned him, but that only meant he was on the right track. For his pain and suffering, he was rewarded with the sweet melody of moans and sighs, of someone whispering his name in the dead of night.

Follow these two steps, and you win the game.  
But did he really win anything at all? Or was he the ultimate loser?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you have any suggestions that'd be fantastic! Also not sure how explicit I'll be with the 'sex scene', but we'll see.


	3. healing wounds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the first step is usually the hardest, but sometimes it's the entire trail that takes all your effort.

How long does it take for wounds to heal? He’s never known, and now he doubts it ever happens. Scars happen. They’re real, oh so real, and even when they’re gone he knows where they had been, trailing the roadmap of a painful life. It was with a heavy heart that he fell right back into his daily routine, stupidly hoping that when he turned the corner he’d run into his mentor as though the past few weeks had nothing more than a nightmare.

Sadly, this was no nightmare. This was much worse.

The eggshells that everyone walked on around Jesse soon disappeared, and then it was almost as though Gabriel had never existed. (He isn’t sure which hurts more-- mourning or moving on.) Maybe speaking his mentor’s name had become a taboo around him. It was a topic that was almost pointedly avoided, and he could hear discussions come to a halt and switch when he entered a room. When others looked at him, what did they see? What did they think? Did they still pity him as they had at the day of the funeral? How hard must it have been for them to keep his mentor’s name off of their tongues, to act as though nothing had changed when in reality everything had?

As much as they tried to hide it, he heard whispered words down the halls. In the dead of night, when he found he couldn’t sleep and wandered the halls of their base, he could hear them talk about  _ him. _ ‘Don’t take it personally, kid.’ The last remnants of his voice in his head were all that kept him from storming into the room and demanding them to stop treating him like he was broken. (Even when he was.) Instead, with nails digging into his palm, he would walk himself outside and pull out a cigarette.

‘Those things’ll kill you, idiot.’   
Maybe that was the point.

Watching the glowing ember, Jesse couldn’t help but stare at the cigar for a long moment before he finally took his first drag.

‘Alright, what gives. What’s on your mind?’  
The same thing as always.

Now and again, someone would come outside with him. Whether it was for their own breath of fresh air, to collect their own thoughts, or to keep him company, they were always quick to come and go. Distantly, he appreciated the company-- the space at his side always felt far too empty, too cold. It was the small talk that annoyed him.

‘Idle chit-chat’s a waste of time. Get to the point.’  
God did he wish they would.

Still, between puffs of smoke, Jesse knew how to put on a stiff smile, and reply as though he were perfectly fine. After all, had he not perfected the poker face? Keep your inner emotions inside, and don’t get sentimental.

‘You’re already fucking up what I taught you.’  
Well, that didn’t make Gabriel a bad teacher. It just made Jesse a bad student. But if there was anything he could do in his memory, it was become the best.

  
There was no slack, now that he took up Gabriel’s place. ‘We clean up their mess, kid. Can’t let them get their hands dirty-- it’d be troublesome for all of us.’ It was a mantra he lived by now, knowing that he was the ragged, torn thing that the supposed pure heroes wiped their bloodied hands on. He became the gleaming eyes in the shadows, the bane of hellish creatures’ existences. He could hear distant screams and terrifying cries when he tried to sleep at night. How terrifying is it to see the blood staining the sleeves of his coat and think nothing of it?

If he had known that this sort of weight bared down on Gabriel’s shoulders, he would have tried so much harder to help lighten the load, moreso than he already had.

 

* * *

 

"Oh--"   
  
He's perfect. He knows Jack, knows where to trail his hands to orchestrate his moans, how to kiss him into a mewling mess. How desperate Jack was, an instrument singing the sweetest, forbidden tunes, and he the pianist bringing the song to life. The score had been laid in front of him, and he merely follows it, licking and biting the way into Jack's heart. There’s imprints on Morrison’s skin, and he knows that he’s merely folding his fingers where Gabriel once had. He’s filling them in his absence, to hold the commander together.   
  
He knows him the way Reyes had.

How wonderful and how terrible it was to share a moment of intimacy when he felt truly empty inside. His heart burned from frostbite-- it only grew colder and colder as their two body grew warmer and warmer. The press of their hips, their interlacing fingers, every bit of it pained him. His breath hitched-- was it pleasure or pain? He didn’t know anymore. Maybe they had become one in the same. Maybe neither existed, and there was truly nothing here at all for him.   
  
The pitch of Jack’s groan is his signal to move back up, and he climbs atop his captain, breath warm as he presses his lips to his ear. He follows the script, plays his role perfectly.   
  
"Whaddya need, Morrison?"   
  
His voice is no more than a whisper. Any higher, and the illusion could be broken. He spoke the words of another so perfectly, that perhaps they were both convinced that it truly was Gabe there in his place. After all, Gabe had taught him everything he knew-- as his protege, it would have been shameful if he could not fill his shoes perfectly in his absence.   
  


Looking into Jack’s eyes, he saw desperation, and he saw the reflection of his own thoughts regarding his fallen mentor.

"I need you--"   
  
And that was why he was here, wasn't it?   


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaaaand next chapter's gonna be some McMorrison.


End file.
